Need opinions on website design

[rezadue]

My wife is self employed and I have begun to dabble in web site design. I figured I could get some good advice if all of you web pros and slacker surfers had a second look and made some suggestions.

The site address is http://www.immigrationcan.com

I also have made a flash spalsh page I am not sure I should be using or not:

http://www.immigrationcan.com/index-flash.html

Thanks for having a gander.

[Hacker]

Dude,

Overall I like the site. Neat, clean and professional looking.

Couple of quick comments:

1. Flash page is nice, but the text is way too slow - at least for my taste.
2. I'd give some thought to using drop-down menus instead of showing each sub-category under each major heading. This will allow you to keep your home page length down to a single screen - you don't want people to have to do a lot of scrolling - again, my personal philosophy.

Other than those two picky little comments Great job

[rezadue]

Good points. Thanks Scott.

[Indio]

Reza, if the site is for both USA and Canada (I am not sure cause the site say 'can' but I see some American stuff on it. Mabe you should have a link to each of the countries services by using the respective flags for the link icon.

I agree with Hacker about the slow test updates and again, if it is both US and Canada, then the flash page should reflect that and not just the Maple Leafs flowing by......

As an aside, when you select Family sponsorship, it seems strange to see a picture of a caucasian Canadian or American looking family arriving at the airport.... maybe its just me but I would expect to see a 'minority' family portrayed arriving in the country (and actually that is the same throughout the site, mostly caucasians portrayed (have I crossed the line yet?)

[rezadue]

I can certainly speed up the text in the splash pages, but I think I might just not use it at all. It somehow does not jive with the page.... But I am not sure.

I like the idea of a flag icon for the Canada and U.S. services. The site mostly caters to Canadian matters, but it has some U.S. services. I wonder if I can just use a U.S. Flag icon for the U.S. Services, or something like that.

As for pictures, contrary to what one might think at first, there is a large number of caucasians who require immigration services. That, and it is hard to find royalty free, "minority" looking people for pictures. On a borader note though, do the pictures take away from the site? Are they distractions? Or do they belong? I am not sure about this one.

Thanks for the suggestions Bob.

[314314]

It looks clean and nice... Yet, black color theme is not my first choice. Try softer colors combinations. Perhaps, some red(ish) to imply Canada or maple as you had on the flash.

[cruxradio]

Nice looking website. Could make the image of parliaments buildings brighter. There isnt enough contrast between grey and black on the navigation bar you might rethink the black/white/grey combination you have going to allow the font to stand out more. Aside from that it looks great!

[rezadue]

Thanks for the suggestions fellas.

It looks clean and nice... Yet, black color theme is not my first choice. Try softer colors combinations. Perhaps, some red(ish) to imply Canada or maple as you had on the flash.

[Nat Williams]

I like the top of the page, simple, strong and consistent, and a good use of space.

Here are my suggestions regarding layout

#1 - your header and footer match, but the middle doesn't. I'd recommend having the entire page flow (put the left 10px or so that you have on the header as a border all the way down, also consider the same for the right side since the content is actually not as wide as the top) ... then maybe put a like flat grey in the content and leave the bg pattern for not content areas (i.e. outside the width of your template). Basically make it look like a sheet of paper on the screen, it makes it easier to read.

#2 - I'd reduce the size of the links / menu. Consider javascript drill down menus, and reducing the width. Also, I'm guessing it is on the right because of farsi reading right to left? If so, I'd have it on the left for english since people most commonly look for menus at the top and left in left to right langs.

Alternativly you could have a very narrow (one line tall) menu after your header (ie. full width of the header, right below the header image). List the main headers, and then on rollover a javascript menu drops down with the subs.

#3 - If possible replace some of the darker/lower res top images with higher res ones. It will make a world of difference.


Technical Notes

#1 - You need to force the encoding of your page to Western European in english. The french characters (é and other accents) do not litterally translate into unicode. (unicode uses the # references)

[rezadue]

Awesome. Thanks for this Nat.

[Gropper]

I got nothing to say about the web site, but i now know that your wife is WWWWAAAAYYYYY smarter then you!



But i think we all new that

[rezadue]

She does have enough law degrees to fill a whole wall. But I did manage to get her to marry me.
So who is smarter now????

I got nothing to say about the web site, but i now know that your wife is WWWWAAAAYYYYY smarter then you!



But i think we all new that

[LobWedge]

Very nice! I see you got the Arabic thing sorted out.

[rezadue]

It is a pain in the behind, but I can now have proper persian. Only remaining problem is persian numbers...

Very nice! I see you got the Arabic thing sorted out.